Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

Timeshift has been on a long and twisted path since it was anounced several years ago. Starting at Atari and going down a jump period genre of game, the assets were sold off to Sierra during the great Atari fire sale of 2006. Looking at what kind of game it was at that time, Sierra took it off the fall 2006 release shedule and basically rebuilt the game engine and premise from the ground up. And the time off shows as you get a dirty, harsh reality that is presented in the Timeshift Demo. And as always, click on photos to view them in all their glory.

The demo takes place in what looks to be a current form of a big city, possibly London or New York, but in a different reality due to a change in the time stream. This is more speculative, but It was all I was able to extract from the demo, because it does not give you a lot of lead in to the gameplay. The intro that shows off what you can do with your timesuit is pretty cool, and gives you an idea of what is possible with some thought and the environment.

The game looks amazing. It is dark and grimy, but has a fair amount of color in comparison to the wash out browns of Gears of War. The rain effects caught my eye first and foremost, but character animations were amazing as well. The year of sprucing up the graphics shows. Looking at this game in its earlier incarnations and in its current form is like night and day. The timeframe you are in is a totalitarian and military society, and it shows. The graphics give off a sense of the movie 1984, but with massive amounts of damage. Sound is also huge as explosions, gunshots and other items are huge. When the ground starts to rumble under your feet, you know something bad is coming from the sound. It is a great testament to the sound to portray that kind of feeling.

But the suit is the star of the show in this game. The actions of the suit that you wear is pretty simple to use and allows you to stop, fast forward and rewind time as necessary. And in the demo, while slowing down or stopping time was invaluable, I never had to use any of the other modes of the suit. Not that you don’t have opportunities, but I just found it easier to slow time down than any other modes.

While the game looks like a lot of fun and I enjoyed the hell out of the demo, it had a sense of deja vu. And if you have played any of the Prince of Persia games as of late, you know what I am talking about. The game basically moves that game into the present and adds the time abilities that you had in the Prince games. It is a fun demo, but I just could not shake that feeling of been there and done that. It also did not help that I did not really have to use any of the time powers beyond the slowing or stopping of time. The others had no value at this time in the demo.

It is definitely enjoyable and I would advise everyone to take the game for a test drive. It runs smooth and fast on my gaming rig with all the bells and whistles on, but I would wait for some reviews before picking up the game.